Hard Choices

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s inside look at the choices and challenges she has faced is “a subtle, finely calibrated work…with succinct and often shrewd appraisals of the complex web of political, economic, and historical forces in play around the world” (The New York Times).

In the aftermath of her 2008 presidential run, Hillary Rodham Clinton expected to return to the United States Senate. To her surprise, newly elected President Barack Obama asked her to serve in his administration as Secretary of State. “Hard Choices is a richly detailed and compelling chronicle of Clinton’s role in the foreign initiatives and crises that defined the first term of the Obama administration…it teems with small, entertaining details about her interactions with foreign leaders (Los Angeles Times).

Secretary Clinton and President Obama had to decide how to repair fractured alliances, wind down two wars, and address a global financial crisis. Along the way, they grappled with tough dilemmas, especially the decision to send Americans into harm’s way, from Afghanistan to Libya to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. By the end of her tenure, Secretary Clinton had gained a truly global perspective on the major trends reshaping today’s landscape.

In Hard Choices, “a rich and lively narrative” (Entertainment Weekly), Hillary Clinton offers her views on what it will take for the United States to compete and thrive. This “memoir is serious, sober, and substantive” (The New York Times Book Review).

retrospect I’m not sure our restraint was the right choice. It did not stop the regime from ruthlessly crushing the Green Movement, which was exceedingly painful to watch. More strident messages from the United States would probably not have prevented the outcome and might even have hastened it, but there’s no way of knowing now if we could have made a difference. I came to regret that we did not speak out more forcefully and rally others to do the same. In the aftermath of the crackdown in Iran,

South Korea and Japan were also highly dependent on imported oil. Japan faced an added burden because of the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear plant and the resulting moratorium on nuclear power. Nonetheless the Japanese pledged to cut their consumption of Iranian oil significantly, a courageous commitment under the circumstances. India, by contrast, initially publicly refused Western entreaties to reduce their reliance on Iranian oil. In our private conversations Indian leaders agreed that

possible and brought frontier families together to raise barns and sew quilts. My mother was one of tens of thousands of Americans who sent care packages to hungry families in Europe after World War II. They included staples like powdered milk, bacon, chocolate, and SPAM. I am continuously impressed by the philanthropic spirit of the so-called Millennial Generation. According to one study, nearly three-quarters of all young people in America volunteered for a nonprofit organization of some kind

usually used, especially on Chinese soil, and some in the U.S. government had urged me to give a different speech or not speak at all. But I thought it was important to stand up for democratic values and human rights in a place where they were seriously threatened. In June 1998, I returned to China for a longer stay. Chelsea and my mom accompanied Bill and me on an official state visit. The Chinese requested a formal arrival ceremony in Tiananmen Square, where tanks had crushed pro-democracy